The Red Handkerchief...

[Ben]

If further investigation was pending, ie; necessary, he would have said so, to his superior

Ooh, there's a thought!

So despite the impossibility of Abberline being in a position to verify Hutchinson's claims at the time of the interrogation, you now argue that he had no intention of attempting to verify them afterwards. Well, who knows? You might have something there.

I don't need to Ben, your persistent claim of having proof, yet failing to provide such, is more than sufficient.

I've provided the proof over and over. You may disagree, or be irrationally dissatisfied with it, but that does not give you the right to lash out with repugnant accusations of dishonesty.

The irony is that you are the one who talks about a timewasting bull$hitter.....

Actually, I am the one who talks about a sad, semi-literate stalker....

""

[Fisherman]

Ben:

I've provided the proof over and over.

Surely, it cannot be lost on you that you are constantly challenged about this? I don´t think you should necessarily see that as some sort of accusations of dishonesty, but instead as a well-grounded pessimism about your ability to tell guesswork from actual proof.

Myself, I have gone to great lengths to have a simple question answered by you, but so far, you have not risen to the task. So I´ll try again:

Was money or any other compensation for sex mentioned in Hutchinson´s story about Astrakhan man and Kelly? Yes or no?

Please do not delve into any more musings about how obvious it is that it was an affair of sex for money. You have already made you stance clear on that point. A straight yes or no, or a statement that you do not wish to answer the question is all it takes.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Surely, it cannot be lost on you that you are constantly challenged about this?

I'm "challenged" a lot less on the issue than you are on the subject of your recent Cross theory, and the "challenges" I receive (and respond to in patient detail each and every time) amount to pure repetition from the same two or three people. However, this is the first occasion I've seen the ugly accusation of dishonesty thrown my way, but since it wasn't made by you, I wouldn't let it trouble you.

Was money or any other compensation for sex mentioned in Hutchinson´s story about Astrakhan man and Kelly? Yes or no?

I've made myself very clear on this issue, and I rather wish you wouldn't keep derailing the thread with it. It is incredibly obvious that money for sex was depicted in the Astrakhan-Kelly encounter. Was the word "money" specifically mentioned; no, because it would have been superfluous to state the alarmingly obvious.

Regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben:

I'm "challenged" a lot less on the issue than you are on the subject of your recent Cross theory...

Actually, that is wrong. I make it a point always to acknowledge when something is not proven, and I think that is what tells me apart from you. And you don´t have to bring Lechmere up to respond to the criticism you´ve received. Normally, you dislike him being brought up at all, right?

I've made myself very clear on this issue, and I rather wish you wouldn't keep derailing the thread with it. It is incredibly obvious that money for sex was depicted in the Astrakhan-Kelly encounter. Was the word "money" specifically mentioned; no, because it would have been superfluous to state the alarmingly obvious.

You have avoided - and still avoid - to answer the question. You speak of another matter than the one you are asked about, and you do so in spite of my request to refrain form it.

Anyhow: So no "yes", no "no" and no statement that you wish not to answer the question?

Fine.

I´ll clear it up for you:

It is a proven fact that there is no mentioning about any payment for sex in the Hutchinson story.
It is also a proven fact that there could be other explanations to the scenario than a sex transaction for money. You have acknowledged this yourself, although you of course want to point these other alternatives out as miniscule.
That does not matter - as long as you acknowledge they are there, you also by extension admit that there could have been other explanations to the Hutchinson story than an affair of sex for money.

So, you see, Ben - you do not HAVE to answer my question any more. It is already answered. The inevitable outcome is that Sally was wrong to say in her list that both stories spoke of money being offered in exchange for sex.

It was a case of claiming to have information that was never there.

What we call such things is another matter.

Sally sometimes speak of "sticking to your guns". That is only a wise strategy when there is something to make a case. This is a prime example where neither of you stood any chance at all to make any case at all. And where neither of you seemingly can bring yourself to admit it.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

Ooh, there's a thought!

So despite the impossibility of Abberline being in a position to verify Hutchinson's claims at the time of the interrogation, you now argue that he had no intention of attempting to verify them afterwards. Well, who knows? You might have something there.

Not at all, the witness statements and beat constables notebooks are already in his possession.

I've provided the proof over and over.

There you go again...

You may disagree, or be irrationally dissatisfied with it, but that does not give you the right to lash out with repugnant accusations of dishonesty.

Let me see, you claim to have proof, yet none exists. You also claim to have shown this proof, yet no-one has seen it or can help you point it out.
Then because you are caught red-handed in this subterfuge (by more than myself), you try to claim to be the 'wronged party' - ahh, such a predictable performance.

What place does 'proof' have in a thread devoted to speculation?
Yet you make this claim regardless.

[Ben]

Not at all, the witness statements and beat constables notebooks are already in his possession.

Too bad none of these were remotely in a position to verify the entirety of Hutchinson's account. The best they could possibly have done was establish that a man was standing where Hutchinson claimed to have stood. It wouldn't have legitimized any other aspect of his account beyond his presence for a fleeting moment. What "beat constables" are you on about, anyway? The bloke who, according to press versions (only) of Hutchinson's account, walked past the Commercial Street end of Dorset Street?

Let me see, you claim to have proof, yet none exists. You also claim to have shown this proof, yet no-one has seen it or can help you point it out.

Don't you "no-one" me.

I'm not repeating myself at your behest. If you want to pick another "discredited or not" fight, you'd better scurry off to the appropriate discussion and I'll see you there. You're welcome to disagree, just as you're welcome to reject my detailed explanation (which you've never bothered to digest and understand properly) as to why there can be no chance of the Echo's report being incorrect. What you're not welcome to do is make petty and contemptible accusations of dishonesty on my part, or else conjure up fantasy scenarios in which I was caught "red-handed". Show me where this happened. It'll amuse me.

[Ben]

Actually, that is wrong. I make it a point always to acknowledge when something is not proven, and I think that is what tells me apart from you.

As do I, Fisherman, and when I believe that something has been proven, I also "make it a point" to demonstrate as much. I only brought up Cross to illustrate the folly of reminding me that I've been "challenged" on certain issues, as though you're not in precisely the same boat.

Anyhow: So no "yes", no "no" and no statement that you wish not to answer the question?

I most assuredly did answer your question. In your inexplicable haste to respond, you failed to read my post properly. Had you done so, you would have saved yourself the bother of yet another unnecessary and repetitive attempt at reviving a resolved discussion. Here we go again, with the relevant parts highlighted in bold, and if you say "no answer to my question?" again, I shall be extremely upset:

It is incredibly obvious that money for sex was depicted in the Astrakhan-Kelly encounter. Was the word "money" specifically mentioned; no, because it would have been superfluous to state the alarmingly obvious.

But you've earned yourself a copy-and-paste for your troubles, I'm afraid:

If a source doesn’t explicitly say “he offered her money” but nonetheless makes it clear – short of “flat earth” alternatives – that that is precisely what happened, I conclude that he offered her money, and so inescapable is this conclusion that if I were to find another source that DOES say explicitly say “he gave her money”, I will consider it identical to the first source on that point, and reasonable people who don't engage in ridiculous, purposeless pedantry will agree.

Sally's observation on this issue is absolutely 100% sustained.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

...when I believe that something has been proven, I also "make it a point" to demonstrate as much.

Proof is not a matter of personal belief, Ben. It stands to reason that this misconception on your behalf is what lies behind our different wiews. Proof is something that is absolute and definitive.
Your definition seemingly puts hunches on the same level as proof. "When I believe something has been proven"...?

I only brought up Cross to illustrate the folly of reminding me that I've been "challenged" on certain issues, as though you're not in precisely the same boat.

We are not in the same boat, Ben. Wherever did you get that from? Nautically speaking, we are oceans apart.

I most assuredly did answer your question. In your inexplicable haste to respond, you failed to read my post properly. Had you done so, you would have saved yourself the bother of yet another unnecessary and repetitive attempt at reviving a resolved discussion. Here we go again, with the relevant parts highlighted in bold, and if you say "no answer to my question?" again, I shall be extremely upset:

Getting extremely upset is something you should avoid at every cost, Ben. Not that it intimidates me as such, but we have the requests from the administrators to discuss things in a calm and matter-of-fact way to consider.
I went back to your last post now, and realized that I overlooked your answer, so there will be no call for any etreme reactions on your behalf anyway. I notice that you now - after a large number of requests on my behalf - finally admit that there was no mentioning of money or any other compensation for sex in Hutchinson´s story. You predictably add that it would be "superfluous" to name what is "alarmingly obvious", but as you know, I do not for a moment believe that is IS alarmingly obvious.
I instead say that the by far best guess is that money WAS offered, but a number of other possibilities also exist, none of which can be discarded since we have no evidence to discard it with.

Sally's observation on this issue is absolutely 100% sustained.

It cannot be, I´m afraid. Sally´s observation is a hundred per cent faulty. As you know, if you had answered the question that you finally DID answer in your last post with a "yes", you would have been lying. You instead answered "no", and that was the correct answer.
The only deduction that can be drawn from your answer is that you accept that money was not mentioned, just as no other compensation for sex was mentioned in the Hutchinson story.
And that, my friend, is in a 180 degree conflict with what Sally stated in her list.

I guess this will have you once again stating that it is totally obvious that money WAS offered for sex, but that will only earn you the same factual answer as always:
It is not the question discussed, the question discussed is the one you answered with a "no".

If it HAD been the question discussed, I would happily agree with you that the most probable solution to the riddle is that Astrrakhan man offered Kelly money for sex. Statistics speak for it. But the same statistics allow for other solutions too.

If Sally had written in her list that both versions offer a story in which the by far most credible scenario is that Kelly was offered money for sex, then she would have been home and dry.

It deserves pointing out that we cannot even say that Kelly was offered money for sex in the Daily News version! She WAS offered money, that is outspoken, but it is actually not stated that it was as a compensation for sex.

The core matter here is that even if we have our own convictions and interpretations of parts of the Ripper saga, we can NOT proclaim them as facts.
It is a fact that Hutchinsons story lends itself very well to an interpretation of a money for sex affair.
It is a fact that the Daily News story does so even more, making it a near certainty that it was a matter of sex for money.
But it is also a fact that neither story completely closes the deal.

Claiming in a list that it does detracts from the credibility of the person who produces such a list, and it renders the list as such unreliable on the whole, at least as long as it is not admitted that the phrasing does not hold up to scrutiny. I am therefore relieved that you have admitted as much by now.

I don´t think this needs any further discussion. I apologize that I did not readily pick up on your answer. In my defence, I can only say that the many evasions to provide an answer to my question on your behalf would have been what led me not to see that you finally did answer.

My bad, nevertheless.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

I foolishly clung to the hope that my brief and succinct answer to your question would have abrogated the need for more long-winded repetition on this issue. Why the long post, Fisherman? Why are you going back to all this long after the discussion moved on?

I'm not trying to "intimidate" you, and nor are expressions of irritation prohibited by the forum rules (in the way that personal insults like “timewasting bull$hitter” and false accusations of dishonesty are, for instance). I do, however, question the need to go over this business again.

Both sources involve Kelly being offered money by an obvious client. This conclusion is absolutely inescapable, given that the only alternatives to that scenario are so unutterably ludicrous that they may be instantly discarded. When some things are so startlingly obvious, such as Astrakhan man being depicted as a client who offered the desperate money-seeking prostitute Kelly some funds in exchange for sexual favours, it becomes wholly unnecessary to narrate it. As such, it is absolutely irrelevant if one source spells it out while the other makes it utterly transparent through describing the event itself.

Both sources describe the same event.

Both sources involve an obvious client who obviously offered her money in exchange for her services.

We arrive at this conclusion by discarding the ludicrous, rather than engaging in needless pedantry in the service of no ideal. We bear in mind Sherlock Holme's famous observation: "When you have eliminated the bottom-wipingly ludicrous, whatever remains must be the stinkingly obvious, and therefore the truth". That is axiomatic, and Sally was correct to observe that both "respectably-dressed" men offered Kelly money, because that was precisely the scene being depicted in both accounts. It stays on the list – I will make obsessively sure of that, and I will fight stamina war after stamina war to preserve its inclusion on it.

“It deserves pointing out that we cannot even say that Kelly was offered money for sex in the Daily News version!”

No, but whoever was responsible for this invented “version” clearly wanted his or her readers to come away with the impression that sex was what the money was for.

“Proof is not a matter of personal belief, Ben.”

Yes it is, or else juries would reach unanimous verdicts all the time. There has always been, and will always be, debates over what has or hasn’t been proven beyond reasonable doubt, and the discrediting of Hutchinson’s account unquestionably has, in my opinion. I regard the “Maybrick diary” as a proven hoax, but I accept that the debate will rage on as to whether that hoax is old or modern. Others would dispute that it’s a proven forgery (beyond reasonable doubt, that is).

“We are not in the same boat, Ben. Wherever did you get that from? Nautically speaking, we are oceans apart.”

I don’t need you to remind me of that, Fisherman! All I meant was that it’s a bit “pot, kettle, black” to invest any sort of significance in the fact that I’ve been “challenged”. So have you. A lot.

“I apologize that I did not readily pick up on your answer. In my defence, I can only say that the many evasions to provide an answer to my question on your behalf would have been what led me not to see that you finally did answer.”

No, it’s probably because you were hanging around awaiting a response from me, and posted too hastily when it “finally” arrived. You need to chill, Winston! Apology accepted.

“I don´t think this needs any further discussion.”

I agree. We are making no progress, except perhaps in recognising that we are making no progress.

So now is a good time, as you sensibly suggest, to call it a day on this issue.

All the best,
Ben

[Sally]

What is this? Every time I visit this thread I'm struck by an increasing sense of being stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare...

"You go to the forums to see the thread. Upon arrival, there is a poster who says "You may not post without literal correctness. Everything must be a proven fact in every single instance, no matter how commonplace; otherwise it will be deemed Invalid. You will be deemed Invalid'

I'm convinced that the only way to escape the terrible circle of repetitive pedantry is to re-post the list.....

1. Kelly meets somebody known to her at the corner of Dorset Street
2. Kelly and A.N. Other have a conversation to the effect that Kelly has no money.
3. Kelly and A.N. Other part ways.
4. Kelly is observed by A.N. Other to be accosted by a 'well-dressed' man
5. A. N. Other observes said 'well-dressed' man offer Kelly money - or perhaps alternatively a red handkerchief in the second example if he is in fact Mr Higgins-Isaacs, Kelly's secret fiance [otherwise it should be observed that transactions between prostitutes and their clients almost always involve the exchenge of sex for cash] Fabulous! The answer to her prayers!
6. A.N. Other observes Kelly and the man go back to Kelly's lodgings.
7. A.N. Other engages in overtly curious intrusive monitoring of Kelly’s meeting with a presumed client.
8. Kelly is not seen again until her death.
9. A.N. Other, or the pressman recording her, used the phrases “met the murdered woman” and “murdered woman Kelly”.

Will this save me from the invalidity of incorrect list-making? I can only pray that it's not too late.....

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
Hutchinson did not kill anyone, I would be shocked beyond words if he was a killer[ very shocked]..I have not studied this case since the mid 1960s, just to go down that route, post after post..he was either a time waster, or a honest witness, that is up to the reader to decide , but we do need to act with a degree of intelligence..if only for any more rational observer , that logs onto this wonderful site.
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

Both sources involve Kelly being offered money by an obvious client.

No they don´t - and you just admitted this.

We are making no progress, except perhaps in recognising that we are making no progress.

Wrong. We just made progress, when you at long last admitted that there is no mentioning of money or any other commodity as a compensation for sex in the Hutchinson version.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

What is this? Every time I visit this thread I'm struck by an increasing sense of being stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare...

"You go to the forums to see the thread. Upon arrival, there is a poster who says "You may not post without literal correctness. Everything must be a proven fact in every single instance, no matter how commonplace; otherwise it will be deemed Invalid. You will be deemed Invalid'

I'm convinced that the only way to escape the terrible circle of repetitive pedantry is to re-post the list.....

1. Kelly meets somebody known to her at the corner of Dorset Street
2. Kelly and A.N. Other have a conversation to the effect that Kelly has no money.
3. Kelly and A.N. Other part ways.
4. Kelly is observed by A.N. Other to be accosted by a 'well-dressed' man
5. A. N. Other observes said 'well-dressed' man offer Kelly money - or perhaps alternatively a red handkerchief in the second example if he is in fact Mr Higgins-Isaacs, Kelly's secret fiance [otherwise it should be observed that transactions between prostitutes and their clients almost always involve the exchenge of sex for cash] Fabulous! The answer to her prayers!
6. A.N. Other observes Kelly and the man go back to Kelly's lodgings.
7. A.N. Other engages in overtly curious intrusive monitoring of Kelly’s meeting with a presumed client.
8. Kelly is not seen again until her death.
9. A.N. Other, or the pressman recording her, used the phrases “met the murdered woman” and “murdered woman Kelly”.

Will this save me from the invalidity of incorrect list-making? I can only pray that it's not too late.....

Look at Gareths post 653, and you can see how it should have been done.

I never invited Kafka, by the way - you did.

The best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

I'm not repeating myself at your behest. If you want to pick another "discredited or not" fight, (yada, yada, yada,)

Ducking & weaving Ben, ducking & weaving. Thats all you ever do when pressured for your self-claimed (and apparently self created) version of 'proof'.

[Wickerman]

Ben:

...when I believe that something has been proven, I also "make it a point" to demonstrate as much.

Proof is not a matter of personal belief, Ben. It stands to reason that this misconception on your behalf is what lies behind our different views. Proof is something that is absolute and definitive.

Sadly, for Casebook'ers and those who follow the subject, an all too often trait adopted by the card-carrying Hutchinson'onians, and their 'impartial' wannabees.